In a sheet conveying apparatus that conveys a sheet such as a printed sheet or a printing sheet for printing, a guide section configured to regulate both surface positions of a sheet to be conveyed is arranged. In the guide section, guide members that form a conveying path space extending along a conveying direction are arranged to be opposed to each other. The guide member on one side can rotate to open and close to make it possible to easily perform maintenance such as removal of a paper jam or cleaning of a sheet conveying path.
If a step is present in a joint section of the opening and closing guide, which rotates to open and close, and the guide member arranged and fixed on a conveying direction downstream side of the opening and closing guide member, a jam could be caused in a sheet being conveyed. Such a jam tends to occur if the leading end of a sheet curls.
If a sheet jamming in such a joint section is removed from the conveying path space, the opening and closing guide member is rotated and opened. When paper jam treatment ends, the opening and closing guide member is returned to the original closed position.
If the opening and closing guide member is maintained in the closed position, high positioning accuracy is required to prevent a step from being formed in the joint section. As a method of positioning and fixing the opening and closing guide member, a positioning and fixing section is proposed in which a magnet is attached to the opening and closing guide member, a magnetic body such as iron to which the magnetic is magnetically attracted is attached to a conveying apparatus body, and the magnet is magnetically attracted to the magnetic body to fix the opening and closing guide member in a predetermined position to be unable to pivot.
However, to prevent a step from being formed in a portion forming the joint section of the opening and closing guide member and the fixed guide member, position adjustment for the magnet and the magnetic body has to be performed for each of products, which is time-consuming work. Therefore, there is a demand for a proposal of a sheet conveying path that makes it unnecessary to provide the positioning and fixing section and can prevent occurrence of a jam in the joint section without requiring positioning and adjustment.